Final Exams Can Really Test You

With the annual Thanksgiving meal in the past, and Chrisma-hanu-kwanzakah still looming in the future, it can mean only one thing for the boys, girls and over-educated adults of Moorpark; finals are almost upon us.

Though we’d rather be focused on all the cheery holiday bashes we plan on attending or hosting, we are mired in schoolwork up to our noggins. Show me a high school or college student who starts their final paper more than three weeks before it’s due, and I’ll show you a—wait—I’ll just be very impressed.

Many of us mean well. Really, we do! We try to plot out our schedules on the calendar and keep up with each and every self-imposed deadline. We buy extra highlighters, sticky notes and caffeinated products. We tell ourselves, “I will not leave the house/library/coffee shop until I have completed this psychological analysis of the characters of Wuthering Heights,” (and yes, I wrote that paper my senior year of high school after being possessed by some crazed demon who thought it would be fun).

But then, disaster strikes. We realize we are drooling on our notes instead of highlighting them because we convinced ourselves that sleep was for the weak and/or dead.

Or, we decide that Saturday nights are much more fun spent nursing a drink at one of three local bars while complaining about how much we have to do rather than, you know, doing it.

Although I have gotten remarkably better at organizing between high school and grad school, I still fall prey to some of these mind-induced traps. My latest finals foible is having anxiety attacks and being convinced I am going to fail at everything in life; school, work, my relationships—even my dogs will turn their noses up at me!

None of this is actually the case, but my brain has trouble processing the fact that I have yet to completely fail at all aspects of life at one moment where I implode and leave nothing but a cloud of Julie dust floating in the effluvium. Not that this is in any way an accurate description of how finals week sometimes makes me feel.

School is not for the weak, dear readers. My closest friends are a mix of successful women; a former Marine, a copy-writing queen, a former journalist from a conflict-ridden country, and a young woman who chases after the difficult stories, finishes her homework, works in an office a large part of the week, and still has time to listen to other people’s woes. And let me tell you something; they have all cried at some point because of  the stress of school.

So if you find yourself facing finals in the coming weeks, I stand in student solidarity with you. Remember, whatever doesn’t kill you, probably shortened your life substantially. With that, I bid you adieu while highly recommending that you go eat some chocolate, take a nap, and remember that you will probably not implode. No guarantees, though.